Japan’s #08 Rui Hachimura leaves the court after being sent off for committing to successive unsporting fouls in the men’s preliminary round group B basketball match between Japan and France during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, northern France, on July 30, 2024. | Photo by THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images
It’s quite the trend this year
It’s truly unfortunate, but we’ve seen various people complain about the officiating in the Olympic basketball tournament.
Most recently it was Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovich, who said this: “We tried to talk to them; they didn’t try to talk to us. They just walked away. But it’s ok. The USA doesn’t need that type of help against us. You know, we didn’t have that type of help when they were grabbing us with two hands and all that.”
After complaining about the officials, he goes on to say he doesn’t want to be a loser and complain about the officials.
Obviously he knows that the referees didn’t force him to miss a three with Serbia up four late, or Vasilije Micic to miss another when Serbia was up 84-82 with 3:53 left. They also didn’t help Steph Curry hit a three or LeBron James to go coast to coast to make a layup to give the US a three point lead. And they didn't help Steph Curry to take the ball away from Bogdanovic to put the US up five.
And they didn't force Bogdanovic into a backcourt violation either.
Complaining about officiating has unfortunately been a common theme in these games. South Sudan complained about the refs in their loss to Serbia for another example.
Most of it though has centered around the home team.
Japan partisans complained bitterly about the officiating vs. France as did the Canadians. Bill Simmons tweeted out that “...France is getting the craziest home-cooking basketball officiating in recent memory.“
All of which means Americans get their chance to complain on Saturday. We hope they don’t though.
Obviously officiating can be a big issue, with the most glaring example being the 1972 Olympics, when horrible officiating gave the Soviets three attempts at the final winning shot. The US team vowed to never accept the silver medals and indeed boycotted the medal presentation.
But whatever else happened there, that was on the final play. Missed shots, turnovers, mistakes - those gave the Soviets the chance to actually be in the game at the end. The officials (and not the just the referees, but the FIBA officials in the arena) gave the USSR multiple chances to win.
Our standard has always been this: the only reason to complain about officiating is if it is so bad at the end that it costs a team the game. Think about the Filipowski game at Virginia, the end of the Duke-Indiana game in the 2001 Sweet Sixteen or, obviously, the 1972 US-USSR game.
The other exception would be if the officiating is obviously corrupt, as opposed to merely incompetent. That you would have to call out.
For the most part, however, the game is settled on the court and if you can’t shoot, defend and rebound, you probably aren’t going to win.
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